your point is exactly what willie sutton used to say about robbing banks. you rob banks because that's where the money is. in the end you cannot balance the budget or reduce the deficit just by cutting domestic discretionary spending, just by raising taxes. as you say 60% of the budget is entitlement spending, that's where you've got to make the cuts, that's what republicans are saying. the president is saying i'm willing to do some stuff. i'm sure republicans are saying it's not enoughment it would be conceivably the start of a new round of negotiations. bill: i'll take your statement a step further, you tax the wealthy because that's where the money is as well. back on the screen now top 1% of americans account for 37% of all irs revenue. top 10%@59%. and i'll just remind you from the quote from mid march, speaker boehner to abc news the president got his tax hikes on january 1. the talk about raising revenue is overment it's time to deal with the spending problem. i have not seen any cracks in the republican decision when it comes to revenue and/or taxes